Futurist Art Essay

Italy went through many social reforms and many of them pushed the people to break from the past completely and move forward with new ideas. Mazzini, Marinetti, and Boccioni have all pushed for this ideology in their own ways and criticized the past as almost harmful to society. Mazzini wanted to unify Italy and leave the poor and oppressed Italy behind, Marinetti wanted Italy to start innovating by cutting off tradition, and Boccioni changed the way art was made by leaving traditional art. Some have involved violence as a means to get what they want and others have opposed the idea of violence.

The Young Italy manifesto calls for reform, especially political and social reform. Mazzini wanted the younger generation of Italy to break from the past and move forward by uniting Italy. He also urged not to use violence unless there is a good cause behind it. Mazzini wrote, “Great revolutions are the work of principles rather than of bayonets,” which means the people should not use violence without a good cause, this kind of violence will not push the country forward (Mazzini 33). Later in Italian

Artists started to break away from the norm and experimented with new techniques. One major theme in futurist art was capturing sensation. They focused on portraying sensation and movement instead of the traditional still life portraits. The painting, “Riot on the Galleria” by Umberto Boccioni, portrays a crowd with moving people and chaos. The borders and shapes are not clear which indicate movement. The multiple directions of the crowd capture the sense of panic and urgency. Traditional art featured still life, clear borders, and the people were realistic unlike the people found in futurist art. Futurist artists often claimed that traditional art was almost boring with no life and very anatomical. The style of these artists differed quite a bit from the traditional ways of art and is seen as a form of dissent from old